"Cruella"

 

We took ourselves down to the local Cinemark yesterday and caught up with "Cruella" from the folks at Disney.  This is the "origin story" for one of Disney's all-time odious villains, Cruella De Vil of the 1961 animated feature, "101 Dalmatians."  This live action feature tells the story about how young orphan girl Estella, while serving as a worker drone in the 1970's era London fashion salon of fashionista  Baroness von Hellman came to become the evil Cruella De Vil.    It was a fun and entertaining romp of a movie, and Marilyn and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The costumes were amazing and I imagine the budget for these alone exceeded the GNP of many Third World countries.  I also loved the music soundtrack that was used throughout, mostly 1970's era rock and pop numbers.  The best part of the movie, though, was the performances of the two Emmas  - Stone as Estella/Cruella and Thompson as the Baroness, two Oscar winners who seemed to take great joy in playing off of each other.    Emma Stone  (who defines the word "cute", in my opinion) was delightful as the spunky Estella-turned-Cruella, and Emma Thompson chewed scenery with a gusto that was a joy to watch.

"The Emmas"

Thompson and Stone

I'm not going to spend anymore time on this one other to say that it was entertaining, pretty to look at, and two cool performances by the leads, and you should enjoy it.  

I will elaborate a bit further, though, with a bit of a conundrum that was rolling around in my mind as I watched.  Full disclosure:  I have never seen the original animated movie "101 Dalmatians", so I can claim only a rudimentary knowledge of the story line.  What I did know, however, was that Cruella De Vil was the "bad guy" in it.  So here we have a movie where the heroine is the downtrodden Estella, and the Baroness is the evil one.  So in "Cruella", we are actually rooting for a person who will one day become a villain.  Huh?

I did a little research on this when I got home from the movies yesterday, and I came across a review on rogerebert.com wherein the critic, Matt Zoller Seitz, brought up this very point.  Seitz went on and on....and on....about this point, and became very critical of Disney for even considering it.  After reading his unending paragraphs dissecting this point, I wanted to scream at Mr. Seitz...."Hey, it's only a movie." (A quote attributed to Alfred Hitchcock when one of his actors was disputing points of one of his films with him.)  I mean, really, sometimes critics can take themselves way too seriously.

"Cruella" is only a movie, but a pretty entertaining and fun one at that.  The Grandstander gives it Three Stars.

Stone as "Estella"

Movie Review - "La La Land"

There sure is a lot to like about the movie "La La Land", which we saw this afternoon.  Among them...

• Great performances and chemistry between stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (who just may be the cutest woman in the movies today)
• Terrifically staged song and dance numbers, including one on a Los Angeles freeway and another at the Griffith Observatory
• A great girl-meets-boy motif
• Some really good music
• A story about living and fulfilling your dreams
• Did I mention just how gosh darn cute Emma Stone is?

This movie is making everybody's Ten Best list and many are calling it the best movie of the year.  We went prepared to absolutely love it, and we were loving it....until the end.

Oh, it was yet another terrifically staged number to end the movie, but the actual ending of the story itself left both of us disappointed.  I won't spell it out and spoil it for  those who haven't seen it, and I do recommend that you do see it, but if anyone wants to explain their thoughts on the ending, I am more than happy to listen.

Two and one-half stars from The Grandstander.  (A different ending might have gotten this one three and one-half or even four stars.)

Movie Review - "Magic In The Moonlight"

As it has for the last several years, the late summer brings us the release of the latest movie from Woody Allen.  This year it is "Magic in the Moonlight" starring Colin Firth and Emma Stone and written and directed by Allen.

As has been the case with all of Allen's movies in recent years, the filming does not take place in New York City and instead is filmed in a European location, this time in the south of France.  The movie takes place in 1928, and Firth plays a magician, the very best magician of his time who plays to sophisticated audiences all across Europe.  He is also totally full of himself to the point of obnoxiousness, an agnostic with little or no belief in God, faith, or the idea of an afterlife.  He is called upon by a fellow magician to travel incognito to the south of France to try a debunk a young woman, played by Stone, who is a spiritualist who is claiming to be able to contact the dead husband of a wealthy American woman. Firth accepts the challenge to prove that the woman is a fraud.

I won't give away any key plot points, but you can guess what happens.  The stodgy Firth falls for Stone, who isn't sure whether or not to reciprocate.  Firth is very good in his role, and Stone falls into the long line of Allen female co-stars (Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow, Scarlett Johansson), and she is quite good, although she has a long way to go to achieve the cachet of Keaton or Farrow.  (That could happen, though, as IMDB reports that Stone will also be a part of the movie that Allen will release in 2015.) Perhaps the best character is Firth's Aunt Vanessa, played by Eileen Atkins.

Although there are no big belly laughs in this one, there is still a lot of funny Allen dialog, terrific period costumes and music, and the cinematography of southern France, as well as how Allen uses he sunlight to backdrop several scenes, is almost breathtaking.  And has been the case in many of Allen's films, this one has a rather sweet and positive ending.

Do I think this is one of Allen's better movies? No, probably not, but even a middle-of-the-road picture from the Woodman is better than almost anything else that graces the movie screens, particularly during this summer season.